


Tired Eyes and Street Lights

by poetsandzombies



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mild Angst, Pining, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:27:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22783279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetsandzombies/pseuds/poetsandzombies
Summary: "Eddie," he said on a yawn, slouching up and letting the covers fall off of him. "It's after midnight. What's up?"Eddie didn't answer him right away, pulling jeans and sweats out of the drawers and bundling them up in his arms to bring around to the other side. He collapsed to his knees by the duffel bag and began shoving the clothes inside in an uncharacteristically sloppy manner."I'm running away," he muttered finally, not looking up from his work, panting a little bit.Despite the alarming nature of that statement, Richie couldn't stifle an amused huff of laughter. "You're a 25-year-old man," he said. "You can't 'run away.'"
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 17
Kudos: 374





	Tired Eyes and Street Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: there are brief mentions of Eddie's childhood abuse (which kind of kick off the plot), but only in the beginning.

There was a bend in the bridge that stretched along the north side of town, hooked between the high school and Bassey Park, that Richie's back fit into it neatly, worn and hollowed out for him from all the years of getting jumped by the same boys well into his late teens. 

Derry had become a ghost town in the years since those days. The scrape of Richie's sneakers against the pavement echoed, the old hangout spots he used to go to had closed down, and even the bad stuff seemed to have deserted the area. It wasn't that all the people were gone, but that all of _Richie's_ people were gone, moving away with their families, going off to college after graduation, or chasing job offers out of state. He’d stayed behind, settling into a full-time position from his high school job and finding a small apartment he could barely afford not five minutes from his parent's house. The only other one to stick around was Eddie. He was company enough for Richie, but the town was still quiet without the others. It felt as though the reason they were here to begin with had already passed, and now time was moving without any real purpose.

This wasn't his first thought when he woke to the sound of shuffling around his room, or even the second thought. But it was there, always a steady and unspoken presence in the back of his mind, when he reached blindly for his glasses on the nightside. The lights were on—another thing that probably woke him—and when his eyes adjusted to the room, he saw a duffel bag on the floor by his bed and an Eddie rummaging hastily through his dresser. He blinked stupidly, his half-sleep state keeping the shock at bay, and peered over at the clock beside him. 

"Eddie," he said on a yawn, slouching up and letting the covers fall off of him. "It's after midnight. What's up?"

Eddie didn't answer him right away, pulling jeans and sweats out of the drawers and bundling them up in his arms to bring around to the other side. He collapsed to his knees by the duffel bag and began shoving the clothes inside in an uncharacteristically sloppy manner.

"I'm running away," he muttered finally, not looking up from his work, panting a little bit.

Despite the alarming nature of that statement, Richie couldn't stifle an amused huff of laughter. "You're a 25-year-old man," he said. "You can't 'run away.'"

Eddie paused, a white-knuckled grip around a pair of Richie's threadbare jeans, and looked up. Richie could see it then—the sickly yellow color of his skin and the sweat-slick hair plastered to his forehead. There was panic on his face.

"I think she means to kill me, Rich," he whispered. His voice cracked around Richie's name. 

Richie wouldn't dare say it out loud, but _he_ could have told Eddie _that_. Whatever went on in the Kaspbrak household—of which the specifics Richie knew very little about—only seemed to get worse the older they got. _The more capable Eddie seemed of independence_ , he thought to himself. This past year had frankly scared the hell out of Richie, watching Eddie wither down to the bone from the sheer stress of it. And there was only so much he could do from his position. 

"Okay." He spoke slow, careful. There was no right way to talk to Eddie when he was like this, but he could at least tread lightly. "What are you doing with my stuff?" He gestured to Eddie on the ground. 

Eddie tilted his head, jaw tight. "You're coming with me."

He didn't say it like it was a demand. He said it with a faulty assertion as though he could trick Richie into forgetting to know any better. Richie swung his legs over the bed and dug the palms of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars. 

"I've told you there's always a couch over here any time you need it. My bed, even." 

"Not good enough." Eddie shook his head, and it turned into a sort of frenzied thing. He continued to do it as he finished pushing Richie's clothes into the duffel bag. "I have to get out of this town."

Richie bit down on the inside of his cheek in thought. Eddie got up and moved over to his closet, yanking shirts off of their hangers and tossing them behind him. The taste of metallic spilled over Richie's tongue as he watched. 

"I can't just up and leave," he tried desperately. "I have bills here, I have—I have work in the morning." 

"Richie, you hate your job." 

It was true. Richie had been working at the last running Blockbuster in existence for over eight years, since he was seventeen, and he resented every minute of it. It was eight hours of being on his feet a day, five days a week, muffling his personality and soldiering through the near-constant verbal abuse from customers, some of whom he'd known as far back as his memory could take him. Heavy-lidden exhaustion made it impossible to pursue his own interests even when he did have free time. He had ambitions—he had _goals_ —once. Eddie knew that. Richie wished he didn't. 

But he hadn't pushed back on him out of hesitation to leave—when that was, in truth, not even a question—but out of a need to know how serious Eddie was about this. How ready. There had been times before that he'd tried to leave—times that Richie hadn't even known about until weeks after because he never made it out the door. Eddie needed to be ready because coming back would not be an option.

Eddie sighed and his shoulders sagged. He turned away from the nearly empty closet to look at Richie. "I don't even know what you're still doing here. You could have gotten out."

Richie was quiet in response. He wanted to tell Eddie how he very much could _not_ have gotten out, but then he'd have to explain why. Eddie's eyes stayed on him for a moment longer before going back to his duffel bag where he continued to overflow it.

"Okay," Richie said on a deep breath. 

"Okay?" Eddie echoed.

"Okay," Richie confirmed. He stood up. "But I’m repacking. You didn't even grab my vacation shirt.”

For the first time that night, Eddie smiled at him. It was small, but it was something.

"I was hoping you wouldn't notice."

* * *

Eddie had already put his stuff in the back of Richie’s car, a beaten-up Volkswagen that he and Eddie practically shared because Sonia Kaspbrak didn’t know her son had his license.

“Mind driving?” Eddie asked as they reached the bottom steps outside the apartment complex. Richie’s bulging bag was slung over his shoulder. “I’m sort of...” He held up his hands to show Richie, and they were shaking violently. 

Richie jingled his car keys in answer. “Where to?”

“Doesn’t matter for now. Just wake me up when we cross the state line.”

Richie wondered briefly, as Eddie tucked himself up in the passenger side with his cheek pressed into his seatbelt, if he was worried about being awake on the drive out, or where they might end up if he led the way. He didn't ask.

The roads were quiet at this time of night, nearly empty, and with Richie's tired eyes, the streetlights blurred together ahead and he couldn’t help but steal frequent glances over at Eddie to refocus them. 

It was as though he hadn't learned anything. Eddie was a little irresistible when he slept, partly because he looked so soft and young and at peace, even if he'd tell Richie later on that he’d had a nightmare. But also partly because Richie never missed Eddie more than he did when he slept by his side. He missed his movements, he missed his voice. Richie looked at Eddie when he was asleep and suddenly thought of a million distressingly important things he wanted to tell him, and it was hard not to constantly wake him up to do so.

But he did as Eddie asked tonight and didn't disturb him until he saw the "You Are Now Leaving Maine" sign approaching up ahead. He leaned over then and reached a hand out to squeeze Eddie's knee lightly.

"Hey, Eds," he said as Eddie stirred, blinking tiredly in the seat next to him. "We're almost out." 

Eddie didn't say anything, but sat up a little and looked out the window. Richie thought he saw him take in a small breath and hold it, and he didn't blame him. His foot pressed down a little harder on the gas, suddenly so sure that there'd be flashing sirens in the rearview mirror, that there'd be a dead-end sign ahead of them, that the roads would open up and swallow them both before they could reach—

They reached the exit. They passed it. 

Richie drove on for another minute, and then another five, the silence between them growing. Finally, Richie looked over at Eddie. He couldn't read the expression on his face.

"Do you feel any different?" he asked. 

Eddie frowned and looked down at the palms of his hands. "I do, actually," he said, like it wasn't the answer he was hoping to have. 

The roads stretched out in front of them looked identical to the roads behind them, but maybe the tires of his car sounded different against the asphalt. "Me too," Richie admitted quietly. He couldn't help but feel like something monumental had just happened. And it scared him.

Eddie had him pull into the first motel room they saw, only twenty minutes outside of Maine. He didn't say anything when the first two letters in vacancy were burnt out and the flickering sign read _cancy_ in bright red letters. He didn't say anything when the woman behind the front desk with a brown floral blouse and witch fingers told him they only had single beds available—pushing Richie aside when he tried to pay. He didn't say anything, even, when they opened the door to their room and were immediately met with the thick mixture scent of dust and cigarettes (though maybe he wrinkled his nose a little bit).

Richie let his bag slip off his shoulder and collapsed back on the bed, exhausted from the drive and lack of sleep. The mattress was surprisingly soft, gentle on his tight muscles, his body sinking into it a bit. Eddie followed him across the room and Richie sat himself up on the edge and pulled Eddie between his legs with a finger in his belt loop, dipping his forehead low against Eddie's chest. He touched him like this sometimes—like the way friends weren't really supposed to touch—and sometimes Eddie let him. It wasn't about the romance in these spaces, not for Eddie and not even for Richie; it was about giving each other the comfort they couldn't receive anywhere else. 

A ghost town would do that to a friendship.

"We made it," Richie said to Eddie's t-shirt with a loud groan, swinging his arms around his waist and hugging him.

Eddie made a strangled sort of laugh and put a hand in Richie's hair. "I'm kind of hungry." 

Richie let him go and sat back on his elbows. “I think I saw a vending machine outside.”

“Want anything?”

“Surprise me.”

* * *

Eddie came back over ten minutes later—Richie was about to start looking for his keys, it'd been so long—balancing a bundle of chips and candies and desserts in his arms. 

"Surprise," he murmured through the bag of pringles in his mouth, "I got everything." 

He splayed the contents out on the bed where Richie was sitting cross-legged. Up until that point, Richie hadn't thought that he was hungry. But his stomach growled at the sight in front of him and he grabbed the bag of Cheetos closest to his hand as Eddie sat down on the other end.

Their bed was a mess of sticky, empty wrappers within minutes, the majority of them belonging to Eddie. Richie had never seen him eat like this in his entire life; hungry for sure, but also a little unrestrained. Like he wasn't concerned about what he was putting in his body. Richie watched him with overt fondness, wondering how so much food could fit into such a small body. 

“What?” Eddie said when he caught Richie staring. An amused smile formed on the ends of his mouth.

Richie touched his own cheek lightly. “You have some...chocolate.”

Eddie mimicked the touch on the wrong side of his face. “Here?”

Richie shook his head and laughed. “No, let me—”

He started to reach out, but Eddie yanked away from him, crawling back on the bed until his head smacked against the wall. “No way, dude. Get your Cheeto hands away from me.”

Richie licked the Cheeto residue off his fingers with obscene noises and wiggled them at Eddie. “How about now?”

“ _Euch_ ,” Eddie groaned, but his cheeks were pink and he was laughing. “How did I survive 20 years of my life with you?”

Richie shrugged and grinned. “It was easier with Stan as a buffer,” he offered. Eddie let out a hum of agreement and Richie slapped his hands down on his thighs, thinking of Stanley Uris at the same time he noticed the clock on the bedside table approaching four in the morning. 

"So what's the plan, Eds?” he said. “I'm breaking leases over here." 

He didn't think the consequences would be too terrible, in a town like Derry, with the way he knew the landlord. But he was still on a contract, with or without decent connections, and it would probably wipe out his savings account if nothing else. Also, all his shit was back there. 

Eddie was off the bed then, picking up the empty wrappers between he and Richie and pointedly not looking at him. “I don’t have one.” 

Richie blinked. “No plan?”

“I just need a little time, okay? It’s not like money is an immediate issue.” Money was not an immediate issue for _Eddie_ , who’d been working almost as long as Richie had, but had been able to save most of it. “I don’t even know what I want to do with my life, Rich. I mean, do you?”

Richie didn’t have an exact plan, no. But he saw a fuzzy outline, a couple of directions that looked pretty good for him. He couldn’t exactly say that out loud, though. It wasn’t fair. Derry might have held his entire childhood by the throat, but it never smothered his interests, and he guessed he could be thankful for that. 

He pulled out his phone instead of answering.

"What are you doing?" Eddie asked as Richie put the phone to his ear.

"Calling Bill."

Eddie gave him a panicked look. " _No_ , Richie, don't call them,” he pleaded.

"I'm calling them. We’re not spending any more money on motels if we don’t have to."

* * *

It was nearing 5 a.m. when Eddie had finished washing up, coming out of the tiny bathroom in the corner of their room with damp hair and a pair of boxers that hung low on his bony hips. Richie watched him inspect himself in the mirror, a thumb digging into the hollow of his collar bone and let out a small whine from his spot already tucked under the covers. Luckily Eddie didn't hear, or if he did, he was nice enough to pretend not to. 

Richie wasn’t sure what it was he wanted when he saw Eddie like this, but his eyes caught the sharp edges of Eddie’s protruding spine, the dusting of freckles across his shoulders, and it awakened a calamitous desperation along the place where sex drive met empathetic tendencies, and he wanted to give, give, _give_. He wanted Eddie to have everything, all of himself. He felt too young to understand what that really meant, but simultaneously like understanding might be the death of him.

Eventually Eddie tore his gaze from the mirror, and Richie turned away from him, pulling the covers up over his shoulders and shutting his eyes tight when he felt the mattress dip down beside him. 

“Richie?” Eddie’s quiet voice was so close it tickled Richie’s ear. Richie shifted beneath the covers to face him, his glasses caught between his cheek and the pillows. “Thank you for doing this with me.”

Richie let out an uneven laugh, scared about the small space between their bodies. “Eddie you know I’d... you know I’d do anything for you.”

That was true enough, even if it wasn’t the _leaving_ that Richie had done for Eddie. They were always meant to end up here, one way or another.

Eddie didn't say anything, but continued looking at Richie through half-lidded eyes. Richie remembered the vacancy sign from earlier—the cheap vending machine food—the condition of this motel room—and suddenly realized the fear that'd been sitting in his gut since they'd crossed the state line. It was the freedom. 

Freedom, loud and daunting beneath their feet, was their future. Freedom, an epidemic outside of the little town they'd both lived their entire lives. It had come to them all at once and now, God forbid, these men weren't different, they just had room to stretch. And Richie, though it terrified him, wanted to stretch. 

"Dude, I gotta tell you something," he said, closing his eyes. He could pretend it was a dream that way. "In case the world ends tomorrow or shit, we lose our heads or something. You know that old marked-up bridge by Bassey Park?"

Eddie frowned. "The Kissing Bridge?" he asked. 

"Yeah," Richie said, taking a deep breath. "When we were thirteen, I carved my initial next to yours on that bridge. Wishful thinking and all. It was stupid, I know we were boys. But the thing is, Eddie, after all this time? I don't think there's going to be another bridge. Or—or even another boy. I think about you a lot, you know." He licked his lips. "I'm just in love with you."

Eddie didn't say anything for a long time, and after a while Richie thought he never would. When he did, it was nothing but a barely audible " _oh_." 

Richie willed his heart to even out. "I'm not asking for anything," he said quickly. "I just wanted you to know." _Now that you have the freedom to leave_. 

Another, much shorter pause. And then, "What's it like?"

Richie blinked, confused. "I'm sorry—"

"Being in love, I mean. What's it like?" Eddie's eyes were wide open now, and he looked curious. Not appalled or even scared.

This felt, to Richie, simultaneously like something he could not talk to Eddie about and like something he could _only_ talk to Eddie about.

"It feels weird, sort of...lucky. Like if I do nothing else in my life, at least I got to have this experience. But it can be kind of annoying, too, when the guy gives you so much to worry about."

He laughed, but Eddie looked like he didn't particularly want to hear these things about himself, even though he had asked. _Richie Tozier, will you ever learn to keep your god damn mouth shut?_

"I don't think I know _how_ to be in love," Eddie said finally. 

"Oh," Richie replied, relieved that he was saying anything at all. "I'm not sure it’s something you really decide to do. Not that I wouldn't choose you if I could, uh—but that doesn't seem to be what you want to hear." He bit down on his bottom lip. There wasn't a right way to talk about this, he was sure.

Eddie's frown deepened, his eyebrows drawn together in thought. He'd clearly been struggling with something throughout this conversation, but Richie couldn't figure out what.

"No," he said, "I _mean_. I don't think I've been doing it right."

For all the years Richie knew Eddie, and as straightforward as he was on any other occasion, he could not understand what he was getting at. Eddie met his eyes fully, and there was some kind of resolve on his face. He said: "can I try something?"

Before Richie could answer, Eddie reached out and tangled his fingers through Richie's hair—different than how he had before, more sure of himself—pulling him in until the distance between their faces was nothing and their mouths met on the fault line between pillows.

Eddie kissed Richie like this was the freedom he'd been looking for, Eddie kissed him like he was the state line to cross and god, Eddie was _kissing_ him—kissing _him_?—and he wasn't giving Richie a lot of room or time to process what that meant. Eddie's free hand, the hand not _tugging on Richie's curls_ , searched blindly beneath the covers until it found his waist and gently nudged Richie down onto his back so Eddie could crawl over him, straddling his hips. 

"You taste like Cheetos," Eddie murmured against his lips. Richie thought Eddie tasted like mint, and they had used the same toothpaste, and he started to worry about Eddie's heightened senses before Eddie opened his mouth and kissed him deeper, seeming unbothered by it. 

Richie was a mess of fumbling limbs and wrong angles, trying to situate himself comfortably without disturbing Eddie's movements, trying to decide where he could touch Eddie with silent communication, trying to play it cool so his shock didn't ruin the moment. But they were both pretty uncoordinated, their kisses sloppy and uneven, Eddie's body moving against his rhythmlessly. Richie didn't know any better for it to matter, and thank god for that. He wrapped an arm around Eddie's lower back and pressed him closer against his body. 

This was potentially a mistake, because as soon as he did, he could feel Eddie's erection through the thin fabric of his boxers pressing against his own sweatpants. He let out a moan in surprise and Eddie pulled back, eyes wide.

"Sorry," he said, looking a little lost. "Is this okay?"

Richie blinked up at him stupidly. "You're kidding, right?" But all he could think about was that Eddie was _hard_ , hard from kissing Richie, that he was _responsible_ for that. In more ways than one.

"Actually, can we, um," he steadied his hand on Eddie's back and sat up as gently as he could so he could sit against the bed frame with Eddie sitting in his lap, resituating them in hopes of alleviating the pins and needles in his left leg. 

From this angle, Richie's own erection, tenting up in his sweatpants, was pressed along the curve of Eddie's ass, which Eddie caught onto quick. He gave Richie a small, meaningful smile, and then ground his hips down experimentally.

"I— _Oh_ ," Richie gasped out, sentence cut short at the pleasure the friction caused. He forgot what he was going to say anyway.

"Wow," Eddie whispered, looking a little amazed. He cupped Richie's face in his hands. "Wow," he said again, and then kissed him some more, rocking his hips awkwardly against Richie's as he did. Richie moaned against the kiss dizzily, both of his hands coming down to rest on either side of Eddie's hips, moving with him, fingers dancing along the hem of his boxers. Eddie paused momentarily, his thumb on his cheek, and said: "you can touch me, if you want to." 

Richie did. Richie had thought about touching Eddie for years, but he never gave himself the dead man's dream of thinking he ever could. Eddie sat back a little on Richie's thighs and Richie's hand, big and callused, moved across his stomach before slipping beneath his boxers. Richie watched him carefully, for any sign of no, as he wrapped his hand around his dick. Eddie bit back a strangled moan.

"How do you want—"

"I don't... whatever you like," Eddie said, a tremor in his tone. 

Richie had never touched another man before and the concept was a little more than intimidating, but he could work with that. He took a deep breath and slowly stroked Eddie from base to tip, watching Eddie's face dissolve from tight concentration to slack-jawed pleasure.

"Yeah, like that," he said breathlessly, his hands grabbing Richie's hair again. He tilted his head back as Richie's hand sped up, making quiet little sounds that Richie thought he could get off on just listening to. Richie leaned in and pressed a kiss to Eddie's jaw, then to his neck, then to his shoulder, while his free hand came up and brushed lightly over Eddie's nipple. Eddie gasped, his hips bucking up into Richie's hand the more Richie touched him, the more he kissed him. "Richie...Rich, I'm—Richie, I'm gonna—" 

He didn't finish the sentence before he came, eyes shut tight, making a mess of he and Richie's stomachs but luckily not the bedsheets. Richie stroked him through it somehow, despite the sound of his name in Eddie's orgasm-shaken voice nearly sending him over the edge. 

Eddie wrapped his arms around Richie's shoulders afterward and kissed him sweetly, almost innocently. "Can I touch you?" he asked.

Richie laughed incredulously, hugging Eddie close to him. "You can do whatever you want to me, Eddie."

6 a.m. It was almost 6 a.m. by the time they'd cleaned up (again) and settled back into bed much like they had before only now, they held hands beneath the covers. Richie was inconsolably tired by then, if not from the physical tasks he'd done that night, then by the emotional strain of being given so much, all at once. But he could still look at Eddie and see the world—could see that there was so much to stay awake for.

"If I didn't say it before," Eddie said softly, eyes already closed. "I love you too."

Richie smiled, and Eddie kicked him gently under the covers. " _Dude_." he added mockingly.

* * *

It couldn't have been later than noon when a knock on the motel door woke Richie several hours later, loud and uncalled for. Richie stirred under the obtrusive sound and the strong scent of cigarettes that had revived itself overnight. He groaned irritably into his pillow, hating to be awake no matter how good his reality happened to be. 

"Eddie," he mumbled, but Eddie was passed out beside him, naked body half-peeking out from the tangled mess of covers. He grumbled something unintelligible and Richie pushed himself up onto weak limbs, out of the comfort of the bed and he and Eddie's bubble, and stumbled half-asleep over to the door.

"Did I misread the Do Not Disturb Sign or—" 

Richie's sentence was cut off as he opened the door and was met with a brief flash of dark skin and a bright smile before he was being hoisted into the air and back into the motel room.

" _Mikey_?" he wheezed into the man's shoulder, not used to being able to be manhandled after hanging around just Eddie over the last few years, and finding that he didn't particularly like it. 

"Hey, man," Mike said cheerily, setting him back down when they'd reached the bed. Richie smiled when he finally got a good look at him—it had only been a few years, but he was relieved to see that he looked no different than he had the last time he saw him. 

A smaller man followed right behind them and Richie's smiled widened. Bill looked no different either. "I think we saw Ben and Bev parking," he said, "but he didn't want to wait."

Mike shrugged, completely unashamed of his enthusiasm. Richie looked between the two of them a little longer before remembering Eddie, still a little exposed on the bed.

"Hey, Eds." He crawled up next to him, covering him up as best as he could, and combed his fingers through his hair. "Hey, Mike and Bill are here."

It took some coaxing, but Eddie eventually woke up, greeting the two new men in the room before fully recognizing who they were. By the time Ben and Bev came in, however, he had the decency to look embarrassed about his lack of clothes, pulling the sheets up to his chest as the others huddled around and sat on the edge of the bed. They very politely didn't say anything, and Richie watched Eddie fondly from his spot on the right side of the bed and tried not to kiss the pink flush off his cheeks.

"So you guys came like, straight here," Eddie said hoarsely, a note of confusion in his tone. 

Bev reached out and gripped Eddie's knee over the covers. "Of course, Eddie," she said. "What's more important than this?"

Richie pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked around the room. It wasn't that he didn't think they would come, or even that he didn't think they would come in the manner that they did. There were just no other people quite like these guys, and it had been a long time since they'd all been together like this. Or, _almost_ all together.

"Sorry! _Sorry_." As if on queue, Stanley Uris pushed his way through the now stupidly cracked-open door of the room, looking a little panicked and out of breath. "My girlfriend..." he said by way of explanation, but didn't finish the sentence.

Richie looked over at Bev and mouthed _girlfriend?_ and Bev waved him off with a _we'll talk later_ expression on her face. 

It was good. All of it was good, it was filling in the divots in their bodies that had formed after years of being in each other's absences. Being with Eddie was enough for Richie in so many ways, but neither of them were exactly whole like that. _This_ was what they needed. 

"We just might need somewhere to crash for a while? Until we know....what we want to do," Richie explained, after hours of talking had passed, when they'd finally gotten to the Leaving-Derry and the Why-We-Called. 

"Yeah, I mean, guys. You're welcome to stay with any of us," Mike said, and the others nodded profusely. "But we were on call on the way here—"

"—and we thought it'd be best if you guys stayed with me?" Ben looked from Mike to Richie and Eddie as he finished the sentence. "I have a lot of room," he explained. "And a guest bed already set up. The University's practically across from my apartment because I work there, so you have options. Plus, Bev's nearby." He nudged Bev and she smiled at him. 

Richie looked at Eddie questioningly, and Eddie reached out for Richie's hand and squeezed it in answer. 

"That sounds great, Ben," Richie said. "Thank you." 

Richie brought Eddie's hand up to his mouth, kissing it and feeling, surrounded by his friends in this cigarette-smelling motel room miles away from the place where he grew up, more at home than he ever felt in Derry.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, you made it this far? Incredible. Find me over on tumblr @trashmouthkid. Considering writing a brief epilogue to this but DON'T take my word for it, and thank you so much for reading! <3


End file.
